Brimstone Angels

by Erin M. Evans

  For the reaping, the cell had gathered another ten followers to them and crept up on the Glasyans. As an understanding of peace had been agreed to, the Glasyans had not expected the attack. Only three of the Ashmadai had fallen. They’d tortured the high priestess at length, searching for more information about the orc, but got little. Still the Sixth Layer cultists would think twice before stepping out of line next time, Yvon thought. The Ashmadai ruled Neverwinter as their god ruled the Hells.

  The Ashmadai stripped off their ceremonial robes so as not to arouse suspicion and stuffed them into several haversacks, before heading back up the stairs and out into the street in small groups. Above they would separate and take different paths back to their superior cell, where they could regale their betters with the tale of clearing out the Clockmaker’s Way whores and sending a message to the Glasyans that their actions had been noticed.

  Yvon went up last, alone, and so it was only he who spotted the line of orcs.

  Traveling down the street, like ducklings trailing their mother, four orcs dripping the magic of the spellplague followed a half-elf wearing austere blue robes and the insignia of the hospital and Temple of Oghma.

  To Yvon’s trained eyes, the corruption of the Sixth Layer twisted over the man and the orcs like the curling threads of a mold beneath the molten light of the spellscars they all bore. The strange parade passed the temple-brothel by, oblivious to the abattoir their compatriots’ hideaway had become.

  “Well, well,” Yvon murmured. “The plot thickens.”

  He trailed the strange parade through the narrow, shady streets, the spellscars electric in the fading light. They passed into the main thoroughfare only to cross the Dolphin Bridge, and thereafter veered down the riverside road, and into the yard of a forbidding old mansion.

  Yvon’s talent did not extend to structures, but even he could tell there was something peculiar about that odd and listing abode. He found a spot in a nearby doorway and watched.

  Half an hour passed. Lamplighters made their way over the span of the bridge, turning back at the Blacklake side to leave the less secure district to the night. Yvon was ready to give up and hurry back to his shop—where no doubt, all his confederates had gathered—when the door of the strange house opened again, and the half-elf came out once more.

  The orcs no longer followed him. Instead, the half-elf carried a wooden casket no wider than his shoulders. He stared down at it as he walked, as if transfixed by the bleached and cracked container. He did not notice Yvon, who stood and peered closely at him.

  The Sixth Layer’s signature was still there, faint and wispy and ready to dissolve. Overlaying it was something far stronger, far stranger. It was no mark of the Hells. The light of it was strange and made his eyes feel as if they were trying to boil. He looked away.

  The mark wound around the half-elf’s very bones. Whatever the Glasyans were toying with, it had no interest in being coy.

  Sairché returned to Osseia and all but ran from the treasure room. Lorcan would be back soon, and he’d be furious. There was nothing to do but give him as wide a berth as possible until he calmed down enough to listen to reason.

  She cursed a steady stream under her breath. What line had he sold that girl that she couldn’t see the merit in coming with Sairché? She should have agreed. She should have seen reason.

  Sairché slowed as she neared her mother’s chambers. Perhaps it was for the best. Perhaps it was time to bring Lorcan into her plans. After all, her brother was obviously good at convincing mortals to take the pact. He’d have to see Sairché had a good plan in place—transfer the pacts to high-bidding devils and build up enough treasure or favors to keep them well into the millennia. Lorcan was in the exact same position that she was: outside the hierarchy, barely clinging to their mother’s good graces, not enough influence to gain any real power. He’d have to acknowledge it was best to guard against—

  Sairché froze.

  The air had shifted as she turned the corner, and the sensation of being pulled into something vast and dark gripped her. She took a few cautious steps. The unmistakable scent of rotting flowers. She peered down the corridor. There were hellwasps hovering on either side of the door to her mother’s audience chambers.

  Glasya herself called on Invadiah.

  Sairché paused, watching the hellwasps dart back and forth. The sudden smell of her was agitating them, no doubt. Worse than that, they had their many, shining black eyes fixed on her as she watched them. Glasya’s hellwasps could track down a body by its scent, but those gleaming eyes were how they pinpointed their prey, striking out with their bladed arms and poisoned stingers.

  Mostly, though, the hellwasps hung in the air around Glasya, their adopted queen. The perfect position for gathering all manner of interesting secrets, Sairché thought. A pity hellwasps did not deal in anything but Glasya’s pleasure.

  “Identity,” the nearer one said in a hard, dispassionate voice.

  “Sairché, daughter of Exalted Invadiah,” she said. “Is my mother in?”

  “Impermissible,” the hellwasp said. “You are a threat. Leave this area.”

  “I am not a threat,” Sairché said, with a little laugh. “May I at least pass by? I need to—”

  “All unknowns are threats. You will leave this area or you will be killed.”

  Sairché sighed and backed off twenty steps down the hallway. The difference was enough to satisfy the hellwasps, and they returned to their patrol around the entrance to Invadiah’s chambers. What Sairché wouldn’t give to be able to listen to what was happening in that room.

  She bit her lip. From the pockets of her robes, she pulled a small crystal sphere and a vial of mixed powders. She didn’t doubt Glasya had laid a powerful forbiddance upon the room, turning aside anyone who tried to spy on her. Sairché would have, had she been the archduchess. Hells, she would have if she were nothing but a talented mage.

  But if Sairché didn’t try to peer inside the room, she would never be certain. She sprinkled the powder over the crystal and touched it to her eyelids and her ears. She closed her eyes and pictured in her mind’s eye the brazier that burned in the corner. The scrying might create a disturbance in the air, but so did the fire, and it might not be noticed. She took a deep breath, waiting for the forbiddance to shut her out.

  Instead, she felt the connection tighten, and when she opened her eyes, her mother’s audience chamber was repeated in miniature within the crystal sphere.

  “Twenty,” Glasya said. “Twenty cultists dead.” Her voice rang like the pealing of a bell. She sat upon an ornate litter, two more hellwasps hovering beside her.

  Invadiah kneeled on the floor before the archduchess, her head bowed. “The Ashmadai are overbold, my lady. We would gladly alter our plans to see them punished.”

  “They may be overbold,” Glasya said, “but something has spurred them to this. The imps watching over that cell tell me that the attackers claimed retaliation. And while I’m well aware my followers may have crossed paths with my lord father in the past, all has been quiet for months.” She smiled, and even to see the pale reproduction, Sairché shuddered. “Tense, of course, but quiet. The only change has been in your task.”

  “I swear, my lady,” Invadiah said, “we have made no such overtures.”

  Glasya ran one of the thongs of her scourge through the pinch of her fingernails. “I would suggest, Invadiah,” she said, and a shiver went through the erinyes as the archduchess spoke her name, “that you make certain dear Rohini hasn’t been keeping certain details from you. Otherwise”—she reached out with the butt of the scourge and forced Invadiah’s head up with it—“we will have to discuss your failure to follow orders.”

  Instinctively, all four hellwasp guards surrounded her, took up the corners of the litter, and sped off through the doors of the balcony. The crystal turned cloudy again.

  Sairché let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Better than she ever could have imagined! Asmod
ean cultists attacking Glasyan cultists, and her mother’s Neverwinter mission caught in the middle while—

  Sairché stopped herself and narrowed her eyes at the crystal. Plenty of sensitive, secret information. Why hadn’t Glasya cast a forbiddance? Sairché might have a talent for ferreting out secrets, but she was a dabbler—there were plenty of more powerful mages among the devils of the Hells. Any of them could have been listening. Had Glasya wanted to be heard? Had she left the conversation open as a warning? But then why the hellwasps scaring everyone off? Sairché scowled at the crystal. Something didn’t fit.

  With the hellwasps gone, it was a simple matter to slip in through the door, tuck herself away in a corner, and become invisible. Invadiah stood facing the open balcony doors, her shoulders looking high and tense even through her armor.

  In the corner, the fabric of the plane suddenly wrinkled and split, emitting a red-haired human woman with a sneer on her face. Sairché raised her eyebrows. She had wondered why Invadiah had been ignoring the Needle of the Crossroads, letting Lorcan come and go with it in the last few years—Glasya must have given her a proper portal for this Neverwinter business.

  As the woman stepped out of the portal and toward Invadiah, the glamour melted off of her like wax: bat wings sprouted from her back, her frizzy red curls wafted around her head like a cloud of steam, and the drab robes she wore became a suit of tight-fitting black leather armor.

  Rohini did not look happy.

  “I can’t leap back here every time you get tetchy!” she snarled. “I’m in the middle of things that cannot—”

  “What do you know about dead Glasyan cultists?” Invadiah interrupted. Rohini caught her tongue and frowned.

  “Nothing at all. Why? Should I?”

  Invadiah’s lip curled. “I thought you were the best? You haven’t noticed the Ashmadai have decided to slaughter an entire cell of the archduchess’s cultists in Neverwinter—an act they claim as retaliation?”

  “Of course they claim so,” Rohini said. “The Ashmadai have such fragile, petulant little egos. They’d kill a man for getting mud on their doorstep.”

  “The imps reported the lead priestess was tortured at length for information about an orc who was serving them, and hunting warlocks.”

  Sairché raised her eyebrows at that. She had a very bad feeling.

  Rohini rolled her eyes. “Well, what benefits Asmodeus—”

  “This benefits us none at all!” Invadiah shouted. “Glasya is watching. Glasya knows we have slipped. How close are you? And I don’t want to hear your nonsense about caution—we are too late for caution.”

  Rohini scowled at Invadiah. “He is with the ones who serve the Sovereignty as we speak. They should be impressed with the potential servitors, and they should give him further information regarding the aboleths which live in the Chasm. And then I will convince him to make the offer. And,” she added with a snarl, “I would be a good deal further if I didn’t have to keep your bastard son and his warlock out of my business.”

  Invadiah straightened. “What has Lorcan been doing?”

  “Getting his fingers in Neverwinter,” Rohini said, folding her arms over her chest. “Getting in my way. His warlock is a nuisance, but I deferred to your superiority, Lady Invadiah, and merely set her aside for the moment.”

  “I see.” Invadiah stormed out the open doors and onto the balcony. “Nemea!” she bellowed. “Aornos! To me now!”

  “What are you going to do?” Rohini said. “Have them rend me and rip me and make me say I’m lying? It won’t change facts. In fact, I’d wager if anyone’s responsible for the Ashmadai getting reckless, it’s Lorcan.”

  Invadiah backhanded her, knocking Rohini off her feet, just as Nemea and Aornos, fully armored, galloped into the room.

  Oh, this is going to solve everything, Sairché thought. She let the invisibility fall.

  “Good afternoon, Mother,” she said. Invadiah bared her teeth at her youngest daughter.

  “How long have you been skulking in the corner, girl?”

  “Long enough to hear that you might like some information about what Lorcan’s been up to.” Sairché fluttered her silvery lashes. “Just a few things you might like to know before you go ahead and kill the succubus.”

  Invadiah didn’t reply, but she didn’t reach out to strangle her daughter either, so Sairché assumed she had the floor.

  “To begin,” she said, “Lorcan does have a warlock in Neverwinter. I just saw her there. Though I highly doubt she has been much trouble for Rohini. She isn’t a particularly skilled caster.” Rohini glowered at her, still crumpled on the floor. “And then, did I hear you correctly? An orc is tangled up in this?”

  Invadiah eyed her stonily and did not answer, but neither did she slap the teeth from Sairché’s mouth.

  “I may have seen Lorcan—in fact, a great many may have seen him—the other day, borrowing the Axe of Exigency for an orc he had dragged to Malbolge as punishment for harming that warlock.”

  “My Axe of Exigency?” Invadiah said.

  “I couldn’t say. Though it does seem likely. It was meant to kill some priest or another for him.” Sairché tipped her head. “So you see, though Rohini speculates, she isn’t lying.”

  Invadiah scowled and turned back to Rohini and the shimmering portal. “Where is Lorcan now?” she asked, and it wasn’t until her scowling eyes rolled back to Sairché that her daughter realized the question had been meant for her.

  “On Toril,” she said quickly. “Last I saw. In Neverwinter.”

  “And the warlock?”

  “With him. Though,” Sairché added, “she didn’t seem happy to see him. They might have separated.”

  Invadiah nodded, and Sairché could see they were all very lucky indeed that Invadiah didn’t slap the teeth from all of their mouths, and luckier still that they were none of them Lorcan.

  “Aornos, Nemea,” Invadiah growled. “Fetch your brother.”

  “Your wish, Mother,” Nemea said. “Whole or in parts?”

  Invadiah’s scowl deepened. “Whatever you see fit.”

  Nemea and Aornos grinned at one another, and Sairché schooled her expression to one of indifference. On some level, she certainly pitied Lorcan, but if he was as clever as he seemed to think he was, he would figure out a way to escape Invadiah’s wrath, and if he wasn’t.…

  At least I am not so foolish, Sairché thought with a suppressed giggle.

  “You can use the Needle to get in,” Invadiah said. “The rings are in the treasury.”

  Sairché fingered the pilfered ring on her chain. “I’ll fetch them for you,” she offered, and she scurried out the door before Invadiah could tell her no.

  But she hung back and pressed herself to the hard bone wall beside the door, listening as Invadiah said, “You can have the warlock. Consider her a gift for your good work. Do what you need to get things done.”

  “Oh,” Rohini said, and the purr had returned to her voice, “I’ll make very good use of her.” There was a muted flash as the succubus reactivated the portal, and was gone, followed by a few choice insults from the erinyes.

  Sairché pursed her lips and waited long enough to mimic a sprint to the treasury and back. Damn it, gods damn it. Rohini didn’t even know the value of what she’d been handed, didn’t even care. Sairché’s plans were ruined.

  No. The game’s not over, she thought, slipping back into the room, holding the green stone ring.

  “There was only one,” she said apologetically. “I suspect Lorcan has the other.”

  Invadiah curled her lip and grabbed the ring roughly from Sairché. She stormed from the room and down the hall to the antechamber, her daughters trailing.

  Ahead of the door, she stopped. Sairché ducked to peer around her half-sisters’ knees. Hovering beside the door to the Needle of the Crossroads were two hellwasps, smaller than the ones that had been guarding Invadiah’s chambers.

  “Invadiah,” one said. “We are to assist you.”<
br />
  “Assist me in what?”

  “In correcting the error that resulted in the deaths of the queen’s worshipers.”

  “I have my agents,” Invadiah replied.

  “We are to accompany them,” the hellwasp replied. “The queen commands it, and so we must.”

  “It is ill-advised to delay in this manner,” the other hellwasp said, its mandibles clicking in agitation. Or something, Sairché thought, wrinkling her nose. Who knew what the hellwasps felt. “We are ordered and we must follow orders.”

  Invadiah grit her teeth a moment. “Very well. Move aside.”

  The hellwasps parted, and Invadiah entered the room. As Lorcan had before, she activated the mirror. The surface shimmered and cleared to show Lorcan, skulking through the ruined streets of Neverwinter. Invadiah grabbed Aornos by the arm and hauled her in front of the mirror.

  “There, that place. Study it. Fix it in your mind.” She stuffed the other erinyes’s finger into the green stone ring. When Aornos turned away from the mirror, and toward the Needle, it took several long moments of her concentrating to make the portal open.

  “Grab hold of your sister’s hand,” Invadiah ordered. “The ring will allow you to carry her through. But no one else.” She turned to where the hellwasps hovered. “And that is where your orders cannot be followed,” she said. “There is no other trigger ring left in the Hells. If Aornos ferries you back and forth, she risks disrupting the portal and—worse—alerting Lorcan.”

  “We are prepared,” one of the hellwasps said. “The queen has readied us.”

  Its mandibles parted and from its soft, center mouth a third green stone ring protruded, thick with mucus.

  Invadiah’s rage was a palpable thing, and Sairché stepped back, into the shadows.

  “Very well,” she said tersely.

  “We have memorized the spot,” the other hellwasp said. It hovered near to its compatriot and landed in the center of its back. “We will follow.”